1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to access to a file system of a memory device, and more particularly, to a method of active Flash management, and to an associated memory device and a controller thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As technologies of Flash memories progress in recent years, many kinds of portable memory devices (e.g. memory cards respectively complying with SD/MMC, CF, MS, and XD standards) or solid state drives (SSDs) equipped with Flash memories are widely implemented in various applications. Therefore, the control of access to Flash memories in these memory devices has become an important issue.
Taking NAND Flash memories as an example, they can mainly be divided into two types, i.e. Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash memories and Multiple Level Cell (MLC) Flash memories. Each transistor that is considered a memory cell in SLC Flash memories only has two charge levels that respectively represent a logical value 0 and a logical value 1. In addition, the storage capability of each transistor that is considered a memory cell in MLC Flash memories can be fully utilized. More specifically, the voltage for driving memory cells in the MLC Flash memories is typically higher than that in the SLC Flash memories, and different voltage levels can be applied to the memory cells in the MLC Flash memories in order to record information of two bits (e.g. binary values 00, 01, 11, or 10) in a transistor that is considered a memory cell. Theoretically, the storage density of the MLC Flash memories may reach twice the storage density of the SLC Flash memories, which is considered good news for NAND Flash memory manufacturers who encountered a bottleneck of NAND Flash technologies.
As MLC Flash memories are cheaper than SLC Flash memories, and are capable of providing higher capacity than SLC Flash memories while the space is limited, MLC Flash memories have been a main stream for implementation of most portable memory devices on the market. However, various problems of the MLC Flash memories have arisen due to their unstable characteristics. Although there are some solutions proposed by the related art in response to these problems, it seems unlikely that the related art gives consideration to both operation performance and system resource management. As a result, no matter which solution is chosen, a corresponding side effect typically exists.
In addition, it seems that the related art does not manage file systems of memory devices (e.g. the portable memory devices or the SSDs mentioned above) well. Typically, when the file systems of the memory devices are accessed, only low level information such as the information of the logical block address (LBA) layer (and more particularly, logical block addresses) are utilized for control, so it is likely for the related art to encounter low performance problems, such as problems of unnecessary or improper operations, improper use of the storage space, or unnecessary consumption of the buffering space. Thus, a novel method is required for enhancing the control of data access of a Flash memory in a memory device, in order to give consideration to both operation performance and system resource management.